


Scheduling

by wheel_pen



Series: Viridian Mal [21]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fish out of Water, Gen, Imprinting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-16
Updated: 2013-04-16
Packaged: 2017-12-08 16:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/763529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mal is very good at organizing things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scheduling

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Viridians appear human, but are actually aliens who imprint on other people (Viridian or otherwise) and form a bond with them. They also live their entire life cycle in about six Earth years.
> 
> 2\. In each series, a different character is a Viridian, who was raised by mean Klingons on an outpost. An Enterprise crewmember is captured by the Klingons and they inadvertently form a bond with the Viridian, who helps them escape. Then they return to rescue the Viridian and bring them aboard the Enterprise. The Viridian homeworld is contacted and the Enterprise crew learn the Viridian will most likely die if they are sent away. So they end up staying on the Enterprise, and the crewmember has to adjust.
> 
> 3\. The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

"Here you go, Trip," Mal said solicitously, setting a steaming mug down on the desk in the engineer's office.

"Thanks," Trip mumbled, staring at the data pad in his hand. He reached absently for the mug and took a sip. Which he promptly choked on and nearly spit out. "What the h—l is this?!" he demanded of Mal. "This isn't _coffee_!"

"It's green tea," Mal told him. "It's better for you than coffee. And it promotes mental clarity."

"It tastes like grass," Trip complained, taking another sip.

"Well, I've never eaten grass, so I wouldn't know," Mal admitted. "Poor Trip. You're so tense." He started to knead the other man's shoulders.

Trip melted. "Mmmm… that feels good…"

"How's the schedule going?"

"Pretty d—n bad," Trip replied, tossing the data pad aside.

"You can't just have the computer do it?"

"G-d, I would if I could," Trip sighed, leaning into Mal's massage. "As long as I've been workin' on the d—n thing, it would take even _longer_ to write it all into the computer as a problem to be solved."

"The Captain stopped me on the way back from the Mess Hall," Mal went on. "He was asking about the navigation system upgrades?"

Trip groaned. "Yeah, and Phlox was remindin' me about the environmental system overhaul I've been promising for six weeks. _And_ Marcus has been buggin' me about his new specs for the phase cannons. Not to mention the rest of this c—p," he added, indicating the piles of data pads and half-finished contraptions littering his desk. "Oh, and, you know, running Engineering, keeping the warp field stable, little stuff like that."

"Why don't you have Lt. Hess do the schedule?" Mal suggested helpfully.

"Top supervisor's supposed to do it," Trip muttered, eyes closed. "And Hess is so d—n anal, she'd probably get nothing done for the next _month_ tryin' to perfect it. And then her head would explode. Or she would kill me."

"I shouldn't like that," Mal commented with a frown.

"It's just—impossible," Trip vented with frustration, picking the data pad back up. "I mean, I know Marcus really lays down the law on his crew, hardly takes any special requests in scheduling, and he does his monthly roster in about ten minutes." Trip shook his head. "I just don't want to be that inflexible, you know? I mean, my people d—n well better come to work on time, every time, unless there's some kind of emergency—but there's no reason I can't be a little bit accommodating, as long as they're putting the hours in where they're needed."

"Oh, Trip, you're _such_ a good boss," Mal soothed. "I'm sure if you just _try_ to be accommodating, people will be happy, even if you can't work everything in."

Trip snorted. "Yeah right. I get one thing wrong and that'll be all I hear about. And anyway, I wouldn't even know which things to drop. I mean, look at this." He scrolled through his copious notes. "Hess doesn't want to work from 1800 Friday to 1800 Saturday. Okay, fine, that's a religious restriction. Ramirez wants to do Beta shift Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday but Alpha shift Monday and Thursday because Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday she has her self-defense training at 1030. Okay, fine, that's an important part of her duties on the ship. Barnstead wants off Fridays at 1400 because that's when his book club meets. Which doesn't necessarily sound that important, but have you ever talked to this guy? All he does is engineering, and reading. If he didn't get out to his book club he'd never leave his cabin except for work and food. Kelly has physical therapy with Phlox Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons, and sometimes she can come back to work from that and sometimes she can't. So when she can't, I need someone else with a specialty in plasma physics available to fill out the rest of her shift. And that would only be… Gangent, Chickiusky, or Mbutu. Gangent wants to be off work every Wednesday from 1630 to 1700, because that's when his kids come home from school, on Earth, and Hoshi hooks up a live feed so he can talk to them in real time. And you can't just tell a guy you won't give him time off to say hello to his kids once a week, you know?

"Mbutu's day of religious observance is Friday. He'll work it if there's no one else, but really doesn't want to, and especially not 1200 to 1300. Chickiusky only wants to work Beta or Gamma shifts—he had a short-lived relationship with Fedorov and now he doesn't want to work the same shift. Which is a relatively stupid reason from an adult, except I happen to know he got his heart broke pretty bad and it would just be kind of cruel to put them on the same shift, especially as they'd have to work closely together. I'll do it if I have to, but I really don't want to. But Fedorov doesn't have to have all Alpha shifts—in fact he'd rather move to Gamma because he says it's better for his sleep cycle. So if I move _him_ , then I could have Chickiusky on Alpha, oh, except he's doing his EV certification right now and that's sometime during Alpha shift…" He rolled his head back up to look at Mal. "It's like one of those d—n logic problems my math teacher used to give us in high school. Eight people at a dinner party, A isn't sitting next to B, C is across from E but not next to D, F is three down from A… Always made my head hurt."

Mal's expression was speculative. "Maybe I could give it a try," he offered.

"Um, no offense, Mal," Trip began delicately, "but I've been workin' on this for three days, and, you know, I've managed to do them all in the past somehow, so…"

"You should take a break from it," Mal told him. "Why don't you go work on something else for a little while? Just an hour or two? I could mess with it a bit. I wouldn't change anything permanently, of course."

The idea was tempting to Trip. Not necessarily of giving the task to Mal, although what could it hurt—just the idea of taking a break from the dreaded schedule for a couple hours. He could make some real headway on the navigation upgrades, or double-check those sensor modifications he'd made last week, or talk to Phlox about the environmental systems… "Oh, what the h—l," he decided, standing and stretching. "Go on, give it a try if you want," he told Mal. "I won't be upset if you can't get it, though."

Mal was already curling up in his chair with the data pad. "Okay."

An hour later Mal wandered out of Trip's office, data pad in hand, to find Trip literally up to his elbows in work—more specifically, gutting a panel. Hopefully with the intent of stuffing everything back in at some point, such that the panel worked.

Trip glanced up. "Finally giving in?"

"I think I've got it," Mal told him.

"Eh, don't worry about it, buddy," Trip went on. "Maybe I can sweet-talk T'Pol into doing it for me again." The panel sparked suddenly, as if rejecting his idea.

"I think I've got it," Mal repeated, with a little more confidence.

"What?" Trip had to admit he was skeptical. But if Mal had made any progress at all, maybe Trip could build off it somehow. "Let's see it."

Mal handed him the data pad. "It wasn't so difficult after I developed a stem-and-node hierarchal clustering with four dimensions and converted every request to a numerical value—"

Trip didn't know where to stare, at Mal or the data pad. He would have to go over the schedule Mal had made—in fine detail—but d—n if it didn't look good on first glance. "Hierarchal clustering, huh?" he asked, looking at the notes Mal had left. "Where'd you learn how to do that, anyway?"

"Oh, just read it somewhere, I'm sure," Mal replied modestly.

Trip grinned at him. "Well, good job, buddy. We might have a new job for you." Mal looked up hopefully. Anything he could do to help Trip.


End file.
